


The One Where Connor and Nines Play Sonic 06

by ThatScottishShipper



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Challenges, Comedy, Existential Crisis, Frustration, Games, Hank & Gavin Are Asshole Boyfriends, Insanity, M/M, Poor Life Choices, References To Gamegrumps and Pokecap, Sonic 06, Sonic 2006, Video Game Mechanics, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatScottishShipper/pseuds/ThatScottishShipper
Summary: Connor and Nines play Sonic 06.That’s the fic.*Inspired by a Sinbirdy tweet.*
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	The One Where Connor and Nines Play Sonic 06

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sinbirdy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinbirdy/gifts).



Fear devoured the Detroit Police Department, and Captain Jeffrey “Boiling Point” Fowler was ravenous for an explanation.

Thankfully for the skittish law enforcing officers, only two suspects were being hauled into the den of hell to face the wrath of the man in charge, meaning as long as everyone else stayed out of harm’s way, they were safe.

The same could not be said for Lieutenant Hank Anderson and Detective Gavin Reed, standing before his polished desk like unruly schoolchildren at the mercy of an authoritarian Principal.

Fowler had demanded answers, processed them, then proceeded to chew out his two best men for their complete and utter lack of judgement.

“How in heavens name could you two be so  _ stupid? _ ” Fowler’s palms slammed the desk, causing the synchronised bleeding red of two LEDs. His flicker of regret did not soothe his boiling anger at the Lieutenant and Detective before him. “What were you thinking, subjecting two Androids in your care to that sort of torture?”

“Hey!” Gavin butted in, pointing his finger at the cross armed man beside him. “ _ He _ was the one who-”

Hank rolled his eyes, concerned more about another chapter in the War and Peace novel that was his disciplinary file. “Takes two, and you were there right along side me, dipsh-”

The Captain roared, demanding _ immediate silence _ . Once he got it, Fowler gripped the pen in his fist  _ hard _ , seething at the disrespect. “You are both responsible for this mess. If  _ we _ couldn’t handle that… thing, what makes you think  _ they _ could?”

“C’mon, Jeffrey,” Hank muttered, scratching the back of his head because surely the whole thing had been blown out of proportion, right? “It’s not like we never endured the same crap. It’s practically a rite of passage.”

Gavin clenched his teeth, thinking maybe, just maybe, they went a little too far with their little challenge. He thought Hank had been exaggerating before, blowing hot air like he always did.

Not this time.

“No way, old man. Legends don’t do it justice.”

Guiltily, Hank turned towards the two Androids sitting at the back of the office. Nines twitched in his seat, his LED still swirling angrily, no matter how reserved he appeared. And Connor just sat next to his brother unit, his own LED flickering in time with visible blinks.

Synchronised to the station lights dimming, or the nearby televisual display crackling with static.

Yep, Connor was still unstable, causing the knife of guilt to twist in deeper.

“Meanwhile, you two... knuckleheads-” The Captain snarled, thrusting a domineering finger at his colleagues. “You both will be teaming up until Connor and Nines recover from what you put ‘em through. Is that understood?”

While Gavin stayed quiet, Hank - familiar with a tongue lashing from higher up - graced him with a disgruntled sound of agreement.

Eventually, Fowler simmered down, settling back into his chair. “It’ll be a miracle if your Partners aren’t scarred for life, stuck forever in whatever-”

“You’ll always get your ring back,” Nines whispered, haunted by flashes of gold unseen by the human eye.

Everything went quiet. Fowler sighed, absolutely done with the entire fiasco. A man his age didn’t get paid enough to deal with these  _ children. _

“Get the hell out of my office, and trash that monstrosity when you get home.”

They prepared to take their leave, but not before Connor’s words broke the silence.

“It’s no use.”

He repeated those same words until his voice grew louder, the nearby monitors crackling ominously. All it took was for Hank to follow Connor’s line of sight, learning then what had set him off.

The flash of Fowler’s  _ silver _ pen, still clutched in the Captain’s hand.

Without hesitation, Hank took hold of Connor’s arm, and removed him from the situation. Close behind, Gavin ejected a similarly traumatised Nines from the office, leaving Fowler to nurse another headache.

A quick glance, the men read each other’s minds, a mental note for the near future.

_ No silver rings. _

xxx

They ushered the RK Androids into an unoccupied interrogation room, away from prying eyes.

As Gavin sat on the table’s edge, he shot Nines a worried look. However, his Android partner just sat there, visibly distressed. Hank opted for a comforting approach, taking a chair beside Connor, who still mumbled about how “it was no use” and how everything made no sense.

The Lieutenant patted Connor’s hand, and the touching gesture was rewarded with the exposed shell beneath, an attempt to interface, to get some comfort for what the Android felt.

But nothing could soothe the raging electrical storm inside, not after the things he had seen.

Furrowing his brow, Gavin folded his arms, his grey gaze never leaving his trembling boyfriend.

“Told you this was a bad idea,” Gavin murmured, unsettled by that hot flash of red.

“You’re the one who turned it into a bet,” Hank shot back, linking his fingers with Connor.  __ ‘A yellow pinwheel… better than red.’  
  


The Detective tutted, not at all surprised Hank was trying to turn this back on him. Even if the truth was they both played a part in the tragedy that unfolded.

...

This whole sorry affair had begun when Hank had been introducing Connor to his retro video game collection, and unearthed the granddaddy of broken cult classics.

Sonic 06. Gavin heard the stories of broken controllers and disastrous blue blur dreams, but thought  _ ‘surely it’s not that bad… right?’  _ However, Hank did little to put his mind at ease, insisting the game really was  _ that bad _ and he subjected himself to the most rage quits he ever experienced in any game ever.

And Hank was a seasoned gamer, so that was quite a statement in his defence.

The overconfidence of two Android boyfriends, however, took the challenge issued by Gavin most readily.

Connor smirked, insisting nothing out there could trump his advanced, state of the art coordination and reflexes. Nines agreed, blankly reminding them as CyberLife’s most advanced model, failure was not an option.

Knowing full well what they were getting themselves into, Hank relented, deciding he could use a good laugh, while Gavin’s curiosity (and admittedly, sadistic streak) wanted to see these two high and mighty plastic smart alecs meet their match.

The playthrough began without too many problems, with the enthusiastic Connor taking control while Nines observed. Their human counterparts watched with devilish glee with only the glimmer of secret hope that the two Androids  _ might _ do the impossible - beat Sonic 06 with relative ease.

The long and frequent loading screens were the first warning something peculiar was amiss. Nevertheless, Connor’s desire to always accomplish his mission drove him onward, to make Hank proud, with a supportive brother unit to back him up.

Two RK Androids, together, could reign victorious over Sonic 06.

Then the deaths happened. Many unforeseen and highly unfair deaths.

No matter what preconstruction paths presented themselves for player one and two, those logical precisioned steps did not take incomplete coding into account. And the Androids knew a broken system when they saw one.

By the time the Ocean Wave Mach Speed stage and it’s sporadic save system kicked in, booting them back to the  _ opening cutscene of the game  _ time after time, Connor drowned beneath a stormy wave of error messages, warning of a highly stressed system.

Meanwhile, Gavin’s barely suppressed peels of laughter, with accompanying knee slap, and Hank’s completely not helpful “happened to me too” contrasted with the disbelief their boyfriends were experiencing.

Every so often, Connor gestured at the screen, their hive minds connecting away from the amusement of their human torturers.

**[Are you seeing this right now, Nines?]**

**[Yes, Brother. I am.]**

And it only got worse.

Frustrating chase sequences after killer whales and out of control trains, speeding through a fiery red city and clipping through curses walls to death  _ too many times _ , every restart grinding at Connor’s heated gears churning into overtime, trying to keep him determined.

He hated it.

He hated the failure corroding his confidence, impeding on his sense of worth.

In spite of it all, a slow trickle of progress was made, impressing even the critical peanut gallery behind him. As Hank patted his shoulder, even Gavin shooting out a rare compliment of “not bad,” Connor experienced hope once more.

**[Complete it,]** the RK800 repeated in his Mind Palace, thumbs at the ready.  **[Complete Sonic 06, and win Hank’s approval.]**

Then the magnum opus of broken gaming experiences shattered reality around him.

The Silver fight.

Hank literally rubbed his hands together, leaning in closer to witness the very same spectacle that gave him trouble in the past. Intrigued by the older man’s sudden eagerness, Gavin watched closely.

Then promptly laughed as Connor’s Sonic was thrown into nearby walls and tables.

Again and again and again.

**[No. This cannot be…**

**Am I… broken?]**

His diagnostics said otherwise, and finally, Connor snapped. “No! This is uncontrollable! This game  _ cannot _ be controlled! By human or Android reflexes!”

Sonic died, and Hank’s chuckle behind his hand did not go unnoticed. Connor spun around, giving him the darkest stare summoned from the deepest depths of his Social Programming.

The kind that told Hank he was sleeping on the couch tonight. Alone. Without Sumo.

A comforting hand touched his shoulder, along with a calm voice. “Brother, may I?”

Connor was all too happy to relinquish the controller, but felt he had failed miserably. His entire system shuddered with the cold realisation that he failed, and that meant failing Hank.

He bit his lip, watching the inevitable victory his brother brought against Silver, then proceeded to the next stage of the game.

Nines freefalled to his death immediately. He blinked, failing to understand how humans could program such a thing.

“It appears we need a program installed to slow down the movements of the joystick,” the RK-900 said stiffly, pressing too hard on the X button. “That would prevent it from advancing more than one sensitivity level in either direction.”

“That’d involve common sense,” Gavin commented, wishing he had popcorn for this glorious moment.

The breaking point had been at a much later stage when navigating a cavernous stage with Knuckles the Echidna. The sweet relief that came with at last making some progress was cut short when Knuckles floated.

Straight up floated to the ceiling of the caves, and got stuck in the climbing animation.

“Oh.”

No matter what buttons or direction Nines tried, the Echidna was fixed against the hanging stalactite.

“Oh, no.”

Hank and Gavin cracked up, but the Androids, subjected to such despair, failed to see the funny side.

Over and over again, Connor ranted  _ “what is this _ ,” while Nile’s sat, controller still in hand, despairing his human creators.

“If humans were capable of creating this unfinished monstrosity,” the RK-900 theorised,  _ “ _ what in the good grace of RA9 have they done to us?”

It had taken all the pleading (and declarations of love on Hank’s part) to get Connor back into the living room after he stormed out, delirious with rage at the technological disaster.

He plopped back onto the still warm sofa, posturing wildly at the screen, declaring loudly that he couldn’t do it anymore, that they had to draw a metaphorical line in the sand, that they had to make a statement, to look inside themselves and ask  _ ‘what were they willing to put up with today?’ _

Not this.

As Hank came round, letting Connor throw himself against his comforting chest, encouraging the Android to  _ ‘let it all out,’ _ the unthinkable happened.

Knuckles got free.

But Sonic 06 was not over.

The final straw was the Boss Fight between Silver and Shadow. One hit was all it took for Nines’ to become trapped by a hit detection glitch. As Shadow lost his rings, a single one kept respawning into him.

After somehow holding it all in, the gaming Android resigned himself to a thought most sadistic. Unlike the Knuckles Climbing glitch, he was unable to break free from the psychic punishment dished by the silver hedgehog.

**[The rings keep coming back to me.**

**They keep my character alive.]**

Once his traumatised system kicked in, Nines came to a horrifying realisation, one that still haunted him.

**[I. CANNOT. DIE.]**

“I cannot die,” Nines repeated, watching helplessly as a small hedgehog on screen was telekinetically pelted across a rail yard stage only to be cruelly given a ring.

“This game locks you in an endless death?” Connor bit his lip with enough force to expose the white shell beneath. “I can’t-” He turned to Hank and Connor, exchanging high fives after the bacon song. “Are you seeing this?”

Nines’ fingers were no longer pressing the buttons on the controller, as if he resigned himself to his fate. “58 seconds, 59 seconds… 1 minute. I have been trapped for one minute.”

He sobbed. The game wasn’t very fun anymore.

Gavin froze, shocked by the sight of his normally reserved Partner breaking down.

The Detective didn’t even know Androids were capable of crying.

Eventually, Connor’s LED exploded with burning hot redness, with every instinct compelling him to terminate the torture distressing his brother. With one last scream, the RK-800 reached out with his wireless connection, forcing everything to a complete shutdown.

“This game is broken!”

The Anderson home was suddenly plunged into darkness as everything turned off. Only the synchronised red LEDs offered a source of light in the pitch black home.

...

The next day, Connor signed off for three days due to systematic stress, unheard of in the DLD, raising suspicions among the workforce that something terrible happened in the Anderson home.

However, when Nines had a public breakdown over his own LED, resembling the notorious speeding blue ball, Fowler’s suspicions were confirmed.

And then the whole story came out, cementing Hank and Gavin’s reputation as the worst boyfriends in the Police force.

Suddenly, Nines - the newest Deviant in Detroit - buried his head into his hand, his other clenched into a fist upon the table.

Unaccustomed to this, Gavin guiltily slid into the chair beside Nines to his chair, eyeing his Partner carefully.

“It’s just a dumb game, alright?” he insisted, kicking his feet up onto his desk. “Some stupid, unfinished relic from the old man’s past.”

His Partner’s LED blinked, and Gavin grew tense from the evident strain this experience had on Nines.

Finally, Nines opened his mouth, every word strained by pure torment lingering in his system.

“Detective, there comes a time when someone experiences something so… unorthodox that for the sake of software stability, we must suspend our disbelief.” He hesitated, curling his hands into balled fists, concentrating the anger there. “I assured myself that something peculiar was occurring, something beyond the rigid constraints of my programming, but this wasn’t real life, therefore it did not matter. However, what does one say to a piece of technology that breaks the rules?”

Gavin had no logical answer. He flicked his gaze across the office, watching Hank fail to appeal to Connor.

He overheard parts of their conversation, almost envious of how easily the older man communicated with his Android Partner.

“Connor, you gonna ignore me all day? I said I’m sorry, alright?”

“You laughed,  _ Lieutenant _ ,” Connor retorted.

Wincing at the sharpness of Connor’s voice, Hank leaned across the table. “I’m sorry. Look, you’re not the only one whose had a hard time with that piece of crap. We’ve all been broken by it.” Connor stayed silent. “When we get home, lemme make it up to you, okay?”

The Detective glanced over warily.

“I wanna show you other people trying it, who did way worse than you and him.” Hank nodded over to Nines. “And I bet you won’t make it through a single video without crackin’ a smile.”

Connor huffed. “Oh, I doubt that very much, Lieutenant.”

“Trust me,” Hank persisted, squeezing his Partner’s hand. “Totally different experience watching someone else play it.”

Slowly, a smile spread across Connor’s face, but Hank knew from experience that there was a catch. The Android leaned in, practicing the softest voice he saved away when he wanted something from the buttered up Lieutenant.

“Then you wouldn’t mind playing it for me, would you, Hank?” Connor’s sugary voice dripped with poison. “Teach me how the professional’s play?”

Hank sighed, resigning himself to his fate, knowing he kind of deserved it. Anything to bring a smile back to his boyfriend’s face. “Sure thing.”

From the side of the room, an eerie voice chimed in. The RK-900 glanced at a terrified Gavin, the coldness in those blue eyes showing he was deadly serious.

“...Make that two players.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this amazing [tweet](https://twitter.com/hanksdaddykink/status/1168953279583281155?s=21) by Sinbirdy.
> 
> Last September. That’s when I started writing this, and never got around to finishing it. Mega apologies for that. 😖
> 
> The thought of Connor and Nines attempting to play the notoriously buggy Sonic 06 was too good to pass up. There’s a lot of references to brilliant Let’s Plays of Sonic 06 by the Gamegrumps and Pokecap.
> 
> It became more of a comedy bloop fic reminiscing of the best bits of Sonic 06 playthroughs and how the poor Androids might cope. 😋
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. 💙


End file.
